Health insurance card a booming success: Minister

As many as 81.7 percent of the population join health care insurance (Illustrative image. Source: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) - The percentage of Vietnamese citizens with health care
insurance has risen dramatically, reaching 81.7 percent as of last year thanks
to new regulations in the Health Insurance Law, said Minister of Heath Nguyen Thi
Kim Tien.

“This
proves that the legal regulations are practical and effective measures to reach
the target of universal health care,” she said at meeting of the
National Assembly’s Social Affairs Committee on March 1.

The
meeting--attended by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam--featured remarks by the
minister and general director of Vietnam Social Insurance to explain a roadmap
toward providing healthcare services for insurance card holders.

The
new regulation, which allows insurance card holders to go to any clinic or
hospital, has helped to ensure benefits of card holders and generate
motivations for hospitals and clinics to improve their services as well, the
minister said.

According
to the minister, since implementing the Government Decree on giving
self-dependence to hospitals and clinics, card holders, especially poor people
and ethnic minorities, have benefited from the lower cost of check-up services
and treatment.

In
2015, 130 million card holders received health care service, reaching a rate of
1.85 times per person per year. Last year, the respective figures were 148
million and 1.89, she said.

These
numbers showed that the new regulation did not make any unpredictable change to
hospitals and clinics, she said.

Agreeing
with the minister, Nguyen Thi Minh, General Director of Vietnam Social
Insurance, said, “The regulation has a right policy that made positive impacts
to both patients and healthcare entities as well as help to develop the
country’s health insurance policy”.

“The
regulation created favourable conditions for card holders to access to the best
healthcare services,” she said.

Besides,
the regulation has also been comfortable for card holders who are migrants or
usually move to many places.

Under
the regulations, card holders living in remote areas or islands can be given
treatments in provincial or central-level hospitals without hospital transfer
decisions by the grassroots-level clinics as before, Minh said.

The
healthcare service entities must improve their services to attract clients,
according to Minh.

However,
there were still shortcomings, Minh said.

Many
district-level hospitals and clinics have not met quality requirements to host
a large quantity of patients.

Moreover,
there has been some unhealthy competition among health care entities,
especially private clinics which attracted patients.

In
terms of health insurance fund, the minister affirmed that the fund always
strikes a good balance.

“Only
in 2016, the fund was over-expensed due to adjustment of healthcare service
prices”, she said.

However,
the over-expenditure was forecasted and the reserve fund was 49 trillion VND (2.2
billion USD).

Thus,
the insurance fund balance has still ensured to meet the card holders’
healthcare demand and do not need to increase the insurance fees in short term,
Minh said.

Speaking
at the meeting, Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam said that the ministry must have measures
to solve shortcomings and further enhance preventive healthcare services at
grassroots-level entities.

The ministry, Social Insurance and other
relevant offices should speed up their individual medical management system
plan and universal insurance policy, said Dam.-VNA